Some drip with irony: a smiling Sylvia Plath, and Jack Kerouac (in a tie!) at Horace Mann. Others are disarmingly cute: Samuel Beckett on his high school cricket team, Madeleine L'Engle in her Smith College yearbook, and J.D. Salinger at military school.

Today marks the 132rd anniversary of the birth of Henry Louis Mencken, the legendary social critic who loved skewering the "booboisie" and anyone else unfortunate enough to wander into his line of sight. He grew up in Baltimore newspapering, and worked at the Sun for many years, before going on...

In his first budget address to lawmakers, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf laid out an ambitious $33.8 billion spending plan that raises taxes a combined 16 percent while slashing corporate and property taxes, restores cuts to education and wipes out the state's deficit.